Eye - 25 March 2011

From pole to poll

Plagued by bells…

Eye was prompted to delve into dusty tomes recently in an attempt to shed some light on enquiries from our Friend, Richard Lee.

While reading some of Samuel Pepys’ diary entries written during the great plague he stumbled upon a reference to Quakers.

In the week ending 20 August 1665, Pepys wrote: ‘In the City died this week 7,496, and of them 6,102 of the plague. But it is feared that the true number of the dead this week is 10,000 – partly from the poor that cannot be taken notice of through the greatness of the number, and partly from the Quakers and others that will not have any bell rung for them’.

Richard wonders whether Quakers disapproved of having a bell rung to mark their passing, or whether the authorities considered them unworthy of having their departure acknowledged in that way.

Eye went on a mission to uncover more information only to find a brief comment on how Quakers, and other dissenters, were not included in the death count because they were recorded in their own registers.

It must be thanks to those registers that William Beck and T Frederick Ball, authors of the 1869 book The London Friends’ Meetings, are able to tell us that in Bunhill Fields burial ground: ‘There lie about 1,100 Friends who were carried off in that terrible year of the Great Plague’.